Maugham was a highly intelligent, self-aware writer who knew what he was about. To call him shallow is itself shallow. In The Summing Up, Maugham reflects upon why it was that his meetings with expatriates in far-flung places was so important for him as a writer (and helps, incidentally, to explain why many other authors have found expatriate life an inspiration).
Maugham happens to one of my favorite writers.
I was lucky in that his collected short stories were in my father's very small book collection. I read them all at the age of 14. I was also lucky in that my mother's larger collection included all the Russian masters, whom I devoured at the age of 21 – Dostoevsky and Turgenev were my faves.
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